I’m hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner next week and am fairly confident I can pull it off, except for one thing: gravy. I suck at making gravy. My few attempts at making it from scratch always result in watery and bland blech.
Does anyone have any tricks or tips for making good, thick gravy suitable for spooning on top of turkey and mashed potatoes? I’m making one bird ahead of time (for leftovers) so I can practice beforehand with a real roasted turkey.
Any advice would be appreciated.
I can’t really give you amounts, but what I do is make a slurry of flour (maybe a quarter cup) or cornstarch with COLD water (maybe a cup), then pour it in to the pan of drippings from the turkey, in a pot (I actually do it in the turkey roasting pan) over medium heat, using a whisk to stir. Once the mixture boils, it will have reached its peak thickness. If it’s not thick enough, add a little more flour (by the teaspoon or so), or a little more COLD water, STIRRING THE WHOLE TIME. Once it’s reached the desired thickness, add salt and pepper to taste.
Pretty basic, but good gravy.
Ginger’s reply is the standard way to make gravy using the bird’s droppings. I watched my grandmother do it a hundred times and it always came out great. I’ve done it a few times myself and it’s pretty easy (but consider myself pretty good in the kitchen anyway).
The flavor will vary greatly depending on what kind of slices you blend in while you’re stirring. Salt, pepper and a little paprika (plus maybe a few other things that don’t spring to mind) are what I use.
I make gravy with a roux of flour and butter (some use the turkey fat.) Melt 3-5 tablespoons of butter in a large enough pot to hold all of the gravy. Slowly stir in and equal amount of flour, stirring all the while. Keep stirring this over medium heat until it’s golden brown. The trick is to actually cook the flour, so you don’t get a floury taste.
Now add the turkey drippings (I skim the fat off as much as I can), still stirring. Keep it fairly slow, and stir with a wisk so you don’t get lumps. I never have enough turkey drippings around, so I always add chicken stock.
Keep it hot at a bare simmer, stirring every once in a while to keep a skin from forming. I like a LOT of gravy, so I’ll usually up the roux, and end up with too much, and have to dilute it more with chicken stock. That’s OK; too much gravy is always better than too little.
:eek:
I do what Cowboy Jules does, I just wanted to add, that you can season it with lots of fresh black pepper and a splash of red or white wine. It might also want salt depending on you preferences.
I don’t care for cornstarch gravy, it’s very glossy and I don’t like the texture.
Julia Childs says to cook the roux (the flour and butter mixture) until it’s the color of a brand-new penny. 
Put a turkey in a blender?
One foolproof recipe for turkey gravy coming up! The beauty of this recipe is that you can make it the day before.
Ingredients
4 Turkey Wings (I like to get smoked wings)
2 Medium Onions, peeled and quartered
1 Cup Water
8 Cups Chicken Broth
2 Carrots, cut in chunks
2 Ribs Celery, with leaves, cut in chunks
1 tsp Dried Thyme
3/4 Cup Flour (for later)
2 tbl Butter (for later)
1 tsp Pepper
How To Do It
Preheat oven to 375. Put wings in pan and add quartered onions. Roast 1 1/4 hours or until browned.
Put wings and onions in a 5-6 quart pot. Add water to roasting pan and stir to scrape up any browned bits. Add to pot.
Add 6 cups of broth. Refrigerate the remaining 2 cups. Add carrots, celery and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 1 1/2 hours.
Remove wings. When cool enough to handle, pull off skin and meat and save for another use.
Strain broth into 3 quart pan and discard vegetables. Put flour into a jar with the remaining 2 cups of broth and shake to blend well (no lumps).
Bring broth in saucepan to a gentle boil and pour flour mixture in. Boil 4-5 minutes until thickened. Stir in butter and pepper.
You can freeze this for awhile or keep it in the fridge for up to a week before you use it.
Whoops that O key is way too close to the I.
Hoping my dinner guests won’t see this.
Hoping you have dinner guests, not **Donner ** guests! :eek:
Cowgirl Jules described my process very well.
I like turkey fat instead of butter - I use one of those fat skimming thingies (like a measuring cup, with a spout that starts at the bottom) to pour out the non-fat drippings into a bowl before measuring out the fat.
Also, instead of chicken stock, I boil then simmer the neck and giblets in water to cover for about an hour while the turkey is cooking, and strain it and set it aside in case I need it. This also lets me eat the first turkey of the day: the neck meat (yummy!).
Equal amounts of fat and flour is key. I usually do 1/3 cup each, and wind up using about 3-4 cups of drippings.
Do not use a spoon instead of a whisk - it just won’t work the same.
Gobble gobble!
I also make a roux-based gravy. I’ve found the cornstarch-thickener method isn’t as rich and flavorful as the roux method.
I use a small balloon whisk, but if you don’t have one and can’t or won’t get one, a fork will work in a pinch.
…mmmmm gravy…
Homemade turkey gravy is the best. My mom used to make a version close to Hello Again’s Yum…
Wow, siberia and PaperBlob’s renditions sound great as well.
Experiment as much as you can before the Big Day, but have on hand Knorr’s turkey gravy. Pillsbury makes a good powdered one as well. All you do is add water to those mixes. No fail! And you can even add some turkey drippings, wine, etc. to that if you want.
Happy Turkey Day!
If there is any doubt about your ability to make gravy, just buy a jar of it and keep it in the pantry as backup, in case something goes horribly wrong.
We’ve just discovered that ToddlerVor’s alergic to wheat, so this year I can’t cheat like that. Anybody got tips on wheat-free (gluten’s still ok) gravy?
-lv
Use cornstarch, or maybe rice flour.
Actually, if it is too lumpy…then place over heat to thicken,mif need be.
[QUOTE=PaperBlob
Do not use a spoon instead of a whisk - it just won’t work the same.
Gobble gobble![/QUOTE]
My mother and in turn I have used a spoon all our lives for gravy, and I’d never seen a gravy lump until eating at someone else’s house. There are two keys to avoiding lumps. One is to mix your liquid very gradually into your flour, so that it turns to a lump-free paste, then slurry, then full fleged liquid. The other is that you MUST stir constantly while heating the gravy or (for that matter) white sauce to a boil.
siberia, your recipe sounds yummy, but WAY too much work! If I’m going to do all that, I’m getting a soup out of it!
I agree with the others who say to have a back-up source. Sometimes you just don’t get enough drippings. Having some canned chicken broth is useful too.
I am a gravy snob, but it’s the only thing I make for the big day, so…
I have already roasted my turkey and left most of the meat on the carcass. This weekend I will make turkey stock with the carcass.
Do not use store-bought broth or stock, it’s usually WAY too salty. Unless you can buy somehting really nice and fresh (Bristol Farms, etc). Make your stock with a big-assed stock pot, turkey carcass, water, onions, carrotts, celery and parsley. Bring to a boil, then simmer all day. After 8-12 hours, strain into another pot and refrigerate overnight. In the AM, skim off the fat and ladle the stock into freezer bags (about 2 cups per bag) and freeze. You are now ready for gravy or great soup!
The day of, make a roux of flour and butter and cook it until golden brown. The floury smell should have completely cooked off. Add heated stock in small amounts, then bring to a boil. You can add diced turkey if you like.
Best. Gravy. Ever.
We used to use the thicken with cornstarch method. That makes passable gravy. We recently tried the roux gravy because I heard that it reheats better. I still don’t know if it reheats better because we ate it all! It is a tastier way to make gravy. I think I want to try turkey fat in the roux instead of butter, but the butter was delicious.
I always use drippings from the bird I am making, and not canned stock because I season each bird differently and I like the gravy to go along with the seasoning of the bird.
Some cooks who make decent gravy gave me the following two methods. I don’t know how they make their gravy edible, but this what I got by their method.
How to make icky gravy:
Lumpy gravy with raw flour.
Take a pan of broth of drippings from the turkey, heat up and add enough regular flour to thicken it.
Non-lumpy gravy with raw flour:
Take a pan of broth of drippings from the turkey, heat up and add enough wondra to thicken it.
When the bird is out of the roasting pan, I put the pan on the stove top, and add some water. Bring to a boil, to loosen all the yummy bits that are stuck to the bottom. Alton Brown calls that deglazing? Stir madly. Put some flour in a jar. Add some water. Shake it briskly. Add this by drizzling into the pre-gravy boiling away. Add salt and pepper.
I just do it to taste, enough water to make gravy, enough flour/water to thicken, enough salt/pepper until it’s right.
It’s the only gravy I ever make, and I too, just dredged up from memory what my mother did. If I can make it, anyone can.
It’s always awesome. I’m sure it’s because of all the turkey grease and crusty bits, but it’s not supposed to be low-cal. It’s gravy.